Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1887-11-18

cord. II society and the world are painfully
discordant TO imperfe ct man, what must they
be to a perfect Godl People try to define
what sin is. It seems to me that sin is get
ting out of harmony with God, disagree
ment with His holiness, with His purity, with
His love, with His commands; our will clash
ing with His will, the finite dashing against
the infinite, the frail against the puissant, the
created against the Creator. If a thousand
musicians, with flute, and cornet- a-piston,
and trumpet, and violoncello, and hautboys,
and trombone, and all the wind and stringed
instruments that ever gathered in Dussel-
dorf Jubilee, should resolve that they would
play out of tune and put concord to the rack,
and make the place wild with shrieking, and
grating, and rasping sounds, they could not
make such a pandemonium as that which
RACES in sinful soul when God listens to the
play of its thoughts, passions and emotions
discord, lifelong discord, maddening discord.
The world pays more for discord than it
does for consonance. High prices have been
! paid for music. One man gave $225 to hear
the Swedish songstresS in New York, and an
other 1925 to hear her in Boston, and another
$3.50 to hear her in Providence. Fabulous
prices have been paid for sweet sounds, but
far more has been paid for discord. The
| Crlmean war cost 81 zoo, 600 900, and our
American cival war over 50, 500, 900 ,000 and
the war debts Of professed Christian nations
are about $15, 200, 900, 900, The world paws
for this red ticket, which admits it to the
saturnalia of broken bones, and death ago
MES, and destroyed cities, and plowed graves,
and crushed hearts, any amount of money
Satan asks. Discord Discord!
But L have to tell you that tie song
that the morning stars sang together
at the laying of the worlds corner
stone is to be resumed again. Mozart's
| greatest overture was composed one night
when he was several times overnowered with
| sleep, and artists say they can tell the places
| in the music where he was falling asleep and
the places where he awakened. So the over
ture of the morning stars spoken of in my
text has been asleep, but it will awaken and
! be more grandly rendered by the evening
stars of the worlds existence than by the
morning stars and the vespars will be
sweeter than the mathis. The work Of all
good men and women and of all good
| churches and all reform associations is to
| bring the race back to the original harmony
| The rebellious heart to be attuned, social life
to be attuned, commercial ethics to be at
tuned, internationally to be attuned, hemis-
jneres to be attuned-but by what force
and in what way?
In olden time the choristers had a tuning
fork with two prongs, and they would strike
| 1t on the back OF pew or music rack and put
1t to the ear and then start the tune, and all
the other voices would join. In modern or
chestra the leader has complete instrument,
| rightly attuned, and he sounds that, and all
| the other performers turn the keys of their
instruments to make them correspond, and
sound the bow over the string and listen,
and sound out over again. until all the keys
are screwed to concert pitch, and the dis
cords melt into one great symphony, and the
curtain hoiSts, and the baton taps, and audi
ences are raptured with Schumann's "Para-
disc and the PERU or Rossini's ''Stabat Mater"
or Bachs "Magnifcat" in D. or Gounod's
redemption"
Now, our world can never be attuned by
an imperfect instrument. Even Cremona
would not do. Heaven has ordained the only
instrument and it is m9.ie out of the wood of
the cross, and the voices that accompany it
are imported voices cantatrices of the first
Christmas night, when heaven serenaded the
earth with "Glory to God in the highest and
on earth peace, good will to men," Lest we
start too far off and get lost in generaities,
we had better begin with ourselves. get our
own hearts and life in harmony with the
eternal Christ. Oh for His almighty spirit
to attune us, to chord our will with his will,
to modulate our life with his life, and bring
us into unison with all that is pure and self
sacrificing and heavenly The strings of our
nature are all broken and twisted and the
bow is so slack it cannot evoke nything mel
lifiuouS. The instrument made for heaven to
play on has been roughly twanged and struck
by influences worldly and demoniac. O,
master hand of Christ, restore this split and
fractured and despoiled and unstrung nature
until it shall wall out for this sin, and then
thrill with divine pardon.
The whole world must also be attuned by
the same power. A few days ago | was in
tie Fairbanks weighing scale mandatory
of Vermont. Six hundred hands, and they
have never had strike. Complete harmony
between labor and capital, the operatives of
scores of years in their beautiful homes near
hU tho Of no foo
invention and Christian behavior made the
great enterprise. So all the world over labor
and capital will be brought into euphony'
You may have heard what is called the can
vii Chorus" composed by Verdi, tune
played by hammers, great and small, now
with mighty stroke, and now with heavy
stroke beating great iron anvil. That is
what the world has got to come to-anvil
chorus, yard stick chorus, shuttle chorus,
trowel chorus, crowbar chorus, pickax
chorus, gold mine chorus, rail track chorus,
locomotive chorus. 1t can be done, and it
will be DONE So all social life will be at
tuned by the Gospel harp There will
now, but the classes will not be regu-
lated by birth, or wealth., or accident,
! but by the scale of virtue and benevolence,
and people will be assigned to their places
as good, or very good, or most ex-
cellent, So also, commercial life will be
! dUuuneu, anu JneT6 Will De Twelve IN every
dozen and sixteen ounces in every pound
! and apples at the bottom of the barrel will be
as sound as those on top, and silk goods will
not be cotton, and sellers Will not have to
! charge honest people more than the right
| price because Others will not pay, and goods
will come to you corresponding with the
sample by which you purchased them, and
coffee will not be chickoried and sugar will
not be sanded, and milk will not be chalked
and adulteration of food will be a States
! prison offense Ave, all things shall be at
tuned, Elections in England and the United
States will no more be grand carnival of
defamation and scurrity, but the elevation
| OF righteous men in righteous way.
In the Sixteenth century the singers, called
the Fischer brothers, reached the lowest bass
ever recorded, and the highest note ever
thrilled was by La Bastardella, and Catalni's
voice had a compass of three and half octaves
but Christianity more wonderful, for it runs
all up and down the greatest heights and the
deepest depths of the worlds necessity, and
it will compass everything and bring it in &C.
cord with the song which the morning stars
sang at the laying of the world cornerstone
| All the sacred music in homes and concert
halls and churches tends toward this consum-
nation. Make it more and more hearty
Sing in your families. Sing in your places
of business. If we with proper spirit use
these faculties, we are rehearsing for the
skies.
Heaven is to have new song, an entirely
new song, but l should not wonder if, as
sometimes on earth tune is fashioned out of
many tunes, Or it is one tune with the varia-
ations so some of the songs of the redeemed
may have playing through them the songs of
earth, and how thrilling as coming through
the great anthem of the saved, accompanied
by harpers with their harps, and trumpeters
with their trumpets, we should hear some OF
the strains of Antioch, and Mount Pisgah,
and Coronation, and Lenox and st. Martins,
and Fountain, and Ariel and Old Hundred
How they would bring to mind the praying